What Could Have Been
by falsecaterpillar
Summary: A collection of missing episode scenes or "what if" scenarios focusing on the relationship between Rick and Michonne.
1. 605

**Author's Note:** This is a collection of missing scenes/alternative scenes with a Richonne bent in season 6. I never really intended to publish them, but I figure some people might like to read them!

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 **#605: Reunion at the Gate**

"Open the gate!"

Until Michonne heard that voice, she hadn't realized how far her heart had plummeted. It rose up, fluttering into her throat. Down the long street corridor was Rick, covered head to toe in blood, pushing himself down the pavement—

He'd come back.

It should've been a magical moment of relief, but Rick's face wasn't that of a soldier returned home from war, but a soldier who brought the war back home with him.

Behind Rick, the landscape was writhing, grey mass. Walkers—hot on his heels. Lots and lots of walkers.

The plan hadn't worked.

Michonne went for the gate, but Tobin was already standing there, fingers draped on the lock, face waxy with terror.

He wasn't moving.

"Tobin," Michonne said, eyeing his hands. "Open the gate."

Tobin said nothing; he stood watching the herd through the bars, expression lost. From up on the platform, Deanna said nothing, staring out at the distance. Both of them were paralyzed. To them, this was Doomsday. Some hellish Christian painting come to life.

Rick was getting closer. "Open the gate now!" he screamed. It hurt Michonne to hear his voice so desperate. Rick was probably thinking they were going to leave him out there to die. The gate was still shut, and if they didn't open it soon, Rick would smack against it, and the tide of walkers would swallow him alive.

Michonne leveled a glare at Tobin, her hand drifting to the katana on her back. "If you don't open the gate right now, I will."

Tobin startled, but nodded. He yanked the bolt loose, and the gate screeched open just enough to let Rick slide through.

Once Rick was safe inside Alexandria, Tobin jammed the gate back into place. A second later, its beams buckled from a wave of rotting faces, mottled limbs, and groping fingers. He slid the second security wall closed. It blocked the view of the rotting undead, but it didn't silence the groaning of metal under the weight or the gurgling of hundreds of walkers now at their door.

Everyone cowered back, but, by some miracle, the walls stayed standing.

"Oh my god," Tobin broke the wordless pall. "What are we going to do?"

Rick doubled over, wheezing. He was still pale, eyes wide with terror. Even after so many brushes with death, the chill it left never thawed. Michonne approached him. She only managed to say, "Rick—" before he pulled her into his arms, crushing her with a hug.

"You're okay," he sobbed.

"Yeah," she said, somewhat stunned. She wrapped her arms around him in return. "I'm okay."

They continued to embrace for a moment; the sound of the undead roaring outside faded to a dull hum. Snug in his sweaty warmth, Michonne reveled the feeling of Rick's heart beating against her chest—but then the tangy scent of blood left her cold. Alarmed, she gently pushed him arm's length away, taking stock of his body, but didn't let go of his arms. "Are you okay?"

Rick ignored the question completely, his eyes wild. "Judith—" His voice was strangled. "Judy—is she, is she okay?"

Michonne began kneading her thumbs into his arms in circular, soothing motions, hoping it would calm him down. "Judith is fine. Carl is fine."

Rick sagged, closing his eyes. "There was a man—he attacked me. He had baby food in his pocket. I thought…"

He'd thought the worst. That was all they ever did anymore.

The wall rattled behind them. Rick looked over his shoulder, and Michonne followed his gaze. It was amazing what Reg's walls could withstand. Even with all that death outside, demanding their flesh, they remained strong.

"They followed me."

Michonne was caught off-guard by Rick's whispered admission. "What?" He couldn't possibly blame himself for this. It had been that damn truck horn, sounding like a dinner bell.

"I could've led them away," Rick continued. "Made sure they wouldn't get here."

Michonne started to squeeze Rick's arms tighter. Was Rick saying he should've gone on a suicide run? To lead the walkers away? Just run and run until his body gave out? Michonne's stomach twisted at the image of Rick collapsing in a heap on some desolate stretch of road.

"Hey," Michonne said, giving his body a small shake, capturing Rick's attention again. "With your stamina? You wouldn't have gotten very far. Maybe a mile? Then they'd wind up back here anyway—and we'd be down a guy."

That earned her a weak smile. "Yeah, you're probably right. I never did run cross country."

It was then out of the corner of her eye, Michonne saw Maggie and Rosita not far off. Both of them were staring at Rick—expectant, nervous. A sickening realization washed over Michonne.

"Glenn. Abraham—" she swallowed, already bracing for bad news. "Did you see them?"

Rick blinked a couple times, as though processing what she'd just asked. "Wait, you mean they're not here?"

Michonne heart sank to her toes as she looked back at Rosita and Maggie, who both looked paler than before.

Of all the people who were still out there, Rick was the only one to come back. Maggie, Rosita—they were still held in suspense. Was Glenn alive? Was Abraham safe? And now a sea of the undead stood between them and those answers. Between them and the men they loved.

Michonne she was still holding onto Rick's arms. She gave them one last squeeze before letting go. For some reason, a feeling washed over her that wasn't far from survivor's guilt. And she didn't know why.


	2. 608

**#608: Alternative Plan**

" _So I wouldn't have to worry about how he could screw up or what stupid thing he'd do next because that's who he is. Just somebody who shouldn't be alive now."_

Michonne never wanted to believe what Rick had said on the porch, but now standing here, trapped, it's hard not to hear those words echo in her ears.

The Andersons. Gabriel. They're the color of ash with grim faces, bodies covered in gut-soaked ponchos, as though awaiting the gallows. Jessie fiddles with her hands, unsure where to put them without spreading blood. Ron sits hunched, gargoyle-like, stewing at a spot on the floor. Near the fireplace, Gabriel closes his eyes in prayer, knuckles bleached around a machete handle.

" _Somebody like that? They're gonna die no matter what."_

Carter's bitten cheek bubbles in her mind, then David's face smashed against the rusted iron fence.

Maybe Rick had been right all along.

"This will work," Rick says, panning his gaze to find everyone's eyes in the room. "Just remember to keep moving. Don't stop. So long as you stay calm, the walkers won't see you." Rick pauses to let his words to sink in. "I've done this before. We'll be alright."

A loose trail of innards slithers off Sam's small shoulder. He whimpers.

"Mom," Sam sniffs. "I'm scared."

Jessie passes a look at Rick, maybe a silent apology for her son ruining the reassuring speech, before dropping to Sam's eyeline to whisper to him.

Michonne can't take it any longer.

"Rick," she says. His eyes lock with hers, and he gets the silent memo. A few seconds later, they're in the foyer, far enough away so the others can't hear.

"You alright?" he says.

"They're not going to make it."

Rick doesn't speak; his eyebrows knit together.

"I know Carl can handle it, maybe Jessie, but Sam—" Michonne gestures for Rick to look over his shoulder: the boy's knees are rattling back and forth. "He can barely stand. How can you expect him to walk through a herd of walkers?"

Rick sighs. He knows it too. Chances are stacked against the Andersons. They haven't been hardened with experience. Kid are inherently unpredictable.

But there is another way.

So Michonne offers. "I'll go."

Rick looks back at Michonne with a sharp squint, like he didn't already know what she was going to say. Like he didn't know what she would suggest.

"I can make my way to the south, down Morgan Street," she continues, "cause a distraction. Should give you, Carl, Judith, and the others a chance. A clear shot toward the gate."

"What?" Rick blinks a few times. "You're going to draw them to you? How? We don't have any flares."

"I found this." Michonne brandishes a scuffed silver flip lighter. She flicks it for a brief moment, sparking a tiny flame, then snaps it shut. "I don't figure poor Mrs. Niedermeyer would mind if her house took one for the team."

Rick still stared at her as though she's speaking in tongues, his expression growing more tense by the second.

"Even if I draw most of them, it still won't be easy," Michonne says. "But, it's a better chance than what they have right now."

"But—" Rick shakes his head. "How will you get back?"

Michonne pauses, only briefly. "If there's a way, I'll find it."

But they both know there will be no way back. Not really.

Rick gapes, slack jawed, for a long moment, before finally saying, "No." And Michonne expected him to protest, if just for show, but he has to know she's right.

"You got a better idea?"

Rick's bristles at the challenge. "You can't do this alone. I'll go with you."

"No, you're needed here."

"And you're not?" Rick says, tilting his head.

Michonne blinks, looking at the floor. She remembers David, and the scribbled note he'd written on the pet shop receipt paper. Taking a deep breath, she looks back at Rick.

"You have a family."

"And you don't?"

Michonne can tell when Rick is agitated. His shoulders square, his jaw starts to clench, he doesn't break eye contact—and Rick isn't blinking.

So she stares back, hoping to wither his foolish resolve. "You know I care about this community, about you, Carl, Judith, but that's not all there is."

Rick looks over his shoulder at the group in the living room. Sam isn't crying anymore, but he's breathing heavy. Jessie flashes Rick a warm smile.

After a pause, Rick nods, his head still turned toward the Andersons. He finally gets it. He finally sees how this has to be. She unsheathes her katana.

"I know you'll keep them safe," she says, turning the front door knob.

The symphony of gurgling hisses grows louder as she cracks the door open. Walkers—thousands of them—ripple shoulder to shoulder in the eerie dusk light. The smell of death strikes Michonne in the face.

Any sane person would lose their nerve, but Michonne steps forward—

Only to come tumbling back. She finds her footing, surprised to see Rick kicking the door shut, holding her by the arm.

"You're not leaving," he hisses at her, and Michonne thinks for a moment she would have better luck with the walkers outside, but then her veins swell with fire. She tries to wrench free from his grip, but his fingers dig deeper.

"What do you think you're doing?" She says with as much bite as she can muster in a whisper, but Rick is in her face—

"I need you. Here."

"Rick—"

"I can't lose you," he says. He pauses, taking deep breaths through his nose. "Please. Don't go."

The tips of his fingers are shaking—all of him is shaking. He lets go quickly, perhaps in self-conscious revelation.

"If they don't make it," he says, licking his lips, "then they don't make it."

"Rick—"

"I can't do this without you."

His eyes are that of an animal trapped in a cage—a swirl of anger and panic. It doesn't suit Rick—or maybe it doesn't suit Michonne to see him like this.

So she says, "Okay, Rick."

The dread in his eyes melts; in its wake comes cold resolve. He takes a deep breath through his nose.

"You're with me?" he says.

"I'm with you."


	3. 609

**#609: Aftermath**

To anyone else, Carl could've been asleep—with his eyes closed, breathing deep and rhythmic.

But to Michonne, who knew his face, Carl looked dead. His expression was slack—like an embalmed corpse or a wax figure. Just skin lying over paralyzed muscle.

Michonne's gaze swept to the surgical tray filled with grey fragments of bullet sitting in tiny puddles of blood. Cloyd had hovered for hours over the spot where Carl's right eye had been, squinting in the dim light, plucking those pieces out.

Now, all they had left was waiting.

Rick sat next to Michonne, bouncing his knee, twirling his wedding band between his hands. Michonne didn't know when he had taken it off. Maybe after he'd heard Cloyd's grave news—"Your son's in a coma"—maybe it'd just been a second ago. Either way, something that should've seemed monumental was just a footnote now. His wedding ring a toy for idle hands.

"She wasn't real," he said. His voice was only a faint whisper, but it rang loud after hours of silence.

Michonne didn't speak, not wanting to distract Rick. For a while, she could sense he wanted to get something off his chest, and now that he was finally scratching that itch, she wasn't about to interrupt.

"I tried to put it back together," Rick continued, his voice cracking. "I knew she wasn't… her. But I thought..." He sighed. "I don't know what I thought."

Michonne didn't know exactly who Rick was talking about, but could only assume he meant Jessie.

Jessie. All she was now was a memory. The friendly blonde neighbor. Liked owls. Wore plaid. Died.

Michonne had picked up there was something going on between Jessie and Rick, some kind of weird vibe she'd thought long died with timid teenagers skirting around their parents, but given she'd never so much as saw them have a conversation, it was hard to pinpoint the nature of their relationship.

"Ron tried to kill me. For what I did." Rick blinked back tears. "I deserved it."

Michonne sighed. This was dangerous. He couldn't go down this path. "Rick—"

"I'm his father," Rick said through his teeth. "I'm the one who's supposed to protect him." He scoffed with disgust. "Not that I am doing the best job. I couldn't keep Lori safe. Couldn't save Jessie. Couldn't save her kids. And now Carl is—" His mirthless laugh chilled Michonne to the core.

"He's strong," Michonne said with force, trying to get through to Rick. She could see the mania building in his eyes. It was the kind of madness that could take over, settle deep and never come out. "He'll make it."

"Yeah, well, maybe it would just be better if didn't."

Michonne sat back in her chair; Rick's words were worse than a physical blow. "Better if he didn't?" she said. Her pulse began to thunder in her ears.

"It would be better, wouldn't it?" Rick's face had never looked more deserving of a punch. "This life — it's not life. It's just waiting to die."

"That's what living is to you? That's what you think when you look at your son?" Michonne pointed at Carl's face—even as lifeless as it was. "He's alive, Rick. He may not look like it, but he is."

"But for how long?" Rick said with a flippant shrug. "Another hour? Maybe a couple weeks? Maybe he'll get all the way to his twenties. And then what?"

"It doesn't matter. He's here. Now." Michonne said, voice growing louder. "I would give anything to have my son again for even a second."

Michonne took in a shuddering breath; the words were out there now, unable to be taken back.

Rick's face lost all its temper; his eyes grew wide. "What?"

Michonne didn't say anything. She replayed saying those words again in her head, nails biting into her palms.

"Y-you had a son?" Rick said, anguish in his face. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I never had to tell you," Michonne said, almost snapping that it wasn't any of his business.

"Had to tell me? How could you not tell me?" Rick said. Michonne could slap him for the self-important way he said it—like she somehow owed her life story to him. Like he had some working catalogue of everyone's trauma. Everyone had to spill their deepest secrets, inner thoughts, except him.

"Because talking about him doesn't bring him back," Michonne said. "I should've fought for him, I should've held onto him. I didn't."

A properly chastised look came over Rick's face. "Michonne, I'm—"

She wouldn't take his apology.

Michonne jabbed a finger into his chest, hard enough he winced, "Carl is here, breathing, fighting for life, and you think he shouldn't? Because living is, what? A chore to you?"

"Michonne—"

She refused to let him interrupt. The ire had been building somewhere deep inside, and now that she had the chance, she wouldn't let it go. "We've finally made it somewhere safe. A place where Carl and Judith finally live. The walls fell, but this place? It didn't. Deanna made this place strong. You saw what these people can do. They saved you. They saved us. If it wasn't for this community, we all would've died."

As her words sunk in, Rick bowed his head; his pitiful countenance sapped all the fire out of Michonne's veins. She took a deep breath, submitting to silence so Rick could speak.

"I'm sorry," he forced out with a swallow. He looked back up at her. "I—I just… you say we're not dead, but there's nothing left in me anymore. I died a long time ago."

"You died a long time ago?" Michonne said, a faint laugh on her breath. "Funny. You don't look like a walker to me."

Rick didn't reward her weak attempt at humor with even a smile. He sighed, dropping his gaze to the floor. "I'm numb, Michonne. I'm… I don't think I feel anything anymore."

A silence descended between them as Michonne leveled a gaze at Rick, mulling over his admission.

She recognized his pain. Not too long ago, she had gotten so close to becoming something worse than dead. She'd kept company with the reanimated corpses of her boyfriend. She'd torn off their jaws and arms, drug them around as a form of sick penance. Revenge. Driven by the desire to burn and destroy. Time became just the march of shadows as the sun glided overhead. Eating became an instinct driven by gnawing pain. Sleep was a gamble between blissful oblivion and vivid nightmares.

"You tried to keep Jessie and her kids alive," Michonne finally said.

Rick stopped twisting his wedding ring in his hands. Michonne wasn't there to divine motives for why Rick behaved the way he did around Jessie, she could see the loss of his wife didn't glue him to the wall. He tried to rectify what had happened. He tried to keep a woman who reminded him of Lori alive.

"You saved Spencer, even though you thought he was good as dead."

On that porch, Rick had told Morgan the citizens of Alexandria were doomed to die, but then he'd made the effort to shelter them from the herd. He yanked Spencer to safety when he failed his high-wire act.

"Your son? He's still here," Michonne said, her voice breaking.

Rick had gone to great lengths to defend Carl. She'd seen Rick's face covered in Joe's blood. She'd heard the crunch of a hatchet through bone as Rick severed Jessie's arm to free Carl. Those weren't daydreams. Those weren't the wishful fever dreams Michonne had suffered during her loneliness—of what Mike should've done.

Mike had never opened himself enough to get hurt. He'd cocooned himself from the horrors of the world with whatever drugs he could find. He'd sat idle in a haze while Andre was torn apart. His pain had never manifested into anything productive.

"And that's all the proof you need that you're not as dead as you think you are."

Before Rick could say anything, Michonne stood up. "I'm going to check on Judith." She walked out of the clinic, just as the sun broke over the horizon.


End file.
